"When the players in a system look irrational,…" — John Brunner (#c1422)

Card #c1422IR // #c1422Synthesis

When the players in a system look irrational, stop analyzing personalities and reconstruct the game whose rules make their moves legal.

— In our words · Source: The Squares of the City (John Brunner)

[Use when]

A reorg or market behaves "crazily": list the players, their allowed moves and what each move wins, then test whether that predicts the next event.

[Why it matters]

Hakluyt's confusion in Vados ends when he sees the city's factions as pieces in a chess game played with real lives; the chaos becomes a sequence of legal moves. A ruleset predicts the next move better than any theory of motives.

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